


bodiless but conscious (infinite but godless)

by Novelsinourheads



Category: Blaseball (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Justice gets incinerated instead of tyreek and everything changes but also doesn't, M/M, Multi, Non-Canonical Character Death, Panic Attacks, Unreliable Narrator, deep chicago lore, non-maincord allowed swearing, the Justice Blindfold, there will be fluff but this chapter is pretty much all angst
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-22
Updated: 2021-02-22
Packaged: 2021-03-16 15:27:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,736
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29455989
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Novelsinourheads/pseuds/Novelsinourheads
Summary: On the 24th day of the second season of the great return of Internet League Blaseball, Justice Spoon gets incinerated, and Tyreek Olive feels the very nature of the world shift.(an exploration of what could have been and wasn't, and what changes and what doesn't.)
Relationships: Tyreek Olive & Edric Tosser, Tyreek Olive & Justice Spoon, Tyreek Olive/Landry Violence
Comments: 7
Kudos: 14
Collections: We Are Fanwork Creators





	bodiless but conscious (infinite but godless)

**Author's Note:**

> so this is an idea that came to me a few weeks ago and just keeps spinning more and more out of control, unfortunately or fortunately, depending on how you look at it.  
> some notes:
> 
> -despite this obviously being an au, i try to stick pretty closely to the timing and events of thing as they happened in our universe, down to gameplay. stuff that happens to justice has either been shifted to tyreek or paula mason, and will continue to do so.
> 
> \- both tyreek and edric use he/they, though for some reason i have leaned heavily towards using he for both in this one! justice and nora both use she/her here, Landry uses he/him, and Rhys, Sandoval, and Velasquez all use all pronouns
> 
> -the concept of nora's ashes has been taken from marn/@basilet. thank you marn! the concept of the justice blindfold as seen here is a mix of general chicago lore and my own stuff, and this interpretation of the trench is entirely my own, for better or for worse.
> 
> CW for drowning, burns, dissociation, mentions of drinking, descriptions of panic attacks and flashbacks, and large overtones of grief and mourning.

On the 24th day of the second season of the great return of the International Blaseball League, Justice Spoon gets incinerated, and Tyreek Olive feels the very nature of the world shift.

He’s holding onto her when it happens, having missed the ball by just a second. He was running with all his might to get there in time to intercept it and didn’t. The heat radiating off her is so bad he needs to turn his head, the palms of his hands scalding and blistering. He’s in so much pain that he doesn’t know if he’s going to be able to hold his bat, but more than that: there’s a deep feeling of absolute wrongness spreading through him, from the tips of his fingers straight to his toes and curdling through his blood. With it comes one thing of absolute certainty, and that is that he is not supposed to be here right now. Whatever that was destined for this moment has gone terribly, terribly wrong.

He doesn’t express this to the rest of the firefighters, who need him to be as much of a leader as he can be right now. Even if he were going to tell Rosa or Butt, it’s all too fresh and too strong and he knows they’ll think it’s just guilt. Which is part of it- he’s absolutely feeling guilt about this, immensely, because he was her mentor, and even beyond that he would die for anyone on this team; but this is something entirely different, like the universe is trying to tell him that this was  _ not _ what was supposed to happen.

Instead, after an hour of everyone crying once the game is done, he tells them to go eat, and that they’ll be doing a debrief in a couple hours back at the hotel, trying to buy himself some time to get his shit together and his head back on straight. When Edric asks if he’ll join them, he makes an excuse that someone needs to deal with all business that goes with something like this, which isn’t a lie, per se. But it’s certainly not the entire truth either, which is how he finds himself on the phone with Landry, sitting on the steps outside of Al Pastor Memorial Park and staring up at the sun that’s just starting to come out from under the moon that was in front of it.

“It should have been me,” Tyreek says, “And not in a self deprecating way. In like, a stomach-turning, I can feel something deeply wrong in my bones and in the universe kinda way.”

“I don’t know,” Landry responds, his voice crackling over the tinny speaker, “It’s a lot to process, and you’ve just been through something extremely traumatic.”

“You don’t believe me.” It’s a statement, not a question.

“No! No. I’m not saying that. I’m saying that you’ve just lost someone incredibly close to you and grief is hard to handle at the best of times, and you’ve already got a thousand things on your plate. Not to mention a hero complex a mile high. Of course you wish you could have saved her, but-” And Tyreek can hear the crack in Landry’s voice, “I don’t know if that’s something that’s possible here. Not with what’s going on.”

He’s right, of course, and Tyreek knows that. He’s been a firefighter long enough to know you can’t save everyone, not even the ones you want to the most. That doesn’t change the absolute wrongness that’s flooded him, the pit of dread in his stomach that’s only continued to grow. He’s got enough messages from the universe to know that this is one of them, and he knows what it means, even if no one else believes him. What he doesn’t know, is how to fix it.

\------

( _ she’s floating, cocooned by water, gently rocking in the waves. It’s dark, so dark, but she’s dead to the world, and so is everyone else here. the depths are only bringing her deeper, farther, somewhere more sinister, all the water leaving her lungs made of stone, becoming something else entirely. there’s a thread though, deep in her mind that leads to somewhere she doesn’t remember, but she knows it’s important. so she tugs and tugs and tugs on it until she can feel it, front and center, and somewhere in the middle of the ocean, justice spoon opens her eyes. _ )

\-------

Tyreek wakes up the next morning with an absolutely pounding headache. At away games he always feels a little on the fritz- probably because he’s far enough away from the city that his link to dispatch starts catching static, but there’s something here on top of that. It could be dehydration from all the crying last night, but it’s coming straight from the back of his head with a weird edge to it that he can’t place, and the pain is so mine-crushingly bad that it has him blindly fumbling for the sunglasses he knows he has in his jacket pocket. It isn’t until they’re secured on his face that he has it in him to sit up and start going over his mental schedule. 

It’s their fourth day in Los Angeles, just about to begin a double series. Paula Mason arrived last night, looking surprisingly spry for her age and he’s sure she’ll do a great job, but he is also incredibly grateful that it’s Mullen pitching today and not her. Thinking of Justice is still a sharp stab straight through his heart, painful and heavy, and the thought of having to put someone new in today is enough to make him sick if he let’s it.

An abrupt knock at the door interrupts his thoughts. His hand stings as it touches the door, making him realize that his bandages must have gotten messed up overnight- he’s going to have to deal with that. Upon opening the door he sees Edric, and barely waves him in before turning around to take care of his hands.

“Sorry, I just need to deal with this real quick.” He says over his shoulder as he grabs his first aid kit out of his bag and starts laying what he needs out on the table by the window.

“Rough night? You’re not looking too great, dude,” Edric calls out. 

Glancing behind him, Edric is already strewn out on his bed, gesturing to his sunglasses. Tyreek rolls his eyes and goes back to tend to his palms, hissing as the antiseptic hits the raw skin.

“I’m fine. Just about as great as any of us are. It’s just a migraine, is all.”

“Sure.”

“Hey! You know I don’t drink.”

“Yeah, well, if there was anytime to have done it, it was yesterday.”

“Is that what you did? Not that I’m judging, but someone’s awfully chipper this morning for that.”

“Oh, I’m fine. You’re just old, which is why-”

Tyreek turns around to glare at him on that one. 

“-Okay! That’s not something we’re going to get into right now, but thank you. Can I ask why you came by? Not that I mind your face or your  _ delightful _ company, but we don’t have practice for another two hours.”

“Oh,” Edric sobers up, the grin leaving his face. “Um, I found this on my bed when I woke up this morning.”

Tyreek has to look up from where he’s grabbing for the tape, but when he does he almost drops it, because in Edric’s hand is a blindfold that, up until yesterday, had belonged to Justice Spoon. And himself before that, he supposes, but that’s not what matters right now. He had forgotten about the blindfold last night in all that had happened, but of course when he thinks about it, it wouldn’t have been destroyed by anything as small as fire. It’s hard for him to quell his own surprise at it choosing Edric, but looking at the terror in his face, he knows that expressing that is the farthest thing from helpful right now.

“You don’t have to say yes if you don’t want to, you know. You can just not put it on and walk away and no one will judge you for it. You’re allowed to walk away from this, at any point. I did.”

(This isn’t really strictly true; for a Justice to step away from the position before their death is practically unheard, and as far as he knows, Tyreek is the only one in known history to do so. He also suspects it was his unique relationship with the city that allowed him to do so, but he doesn’t say this to Edric. Somehow, he doesn't think it’ll help.)

“What if I don’t want to walk away? What if I want to say yes?”

“Then do. But don’t rush into it.”

“You don’t think I can do it.” Edric’s voice cracks, and it’s the worry in his voice that has Tyreek crossing the room and putting his arm around him.

“Hey! No, I didn’t say that. I actually think you’d be a great fit, in your own way. And the city wouldn’t have chosen you if she didn’t think you were capable. It’s just that it’s a big commitment, and you should be really certain that it’s what you want before you take that step.”

“Were you? Certain, I mean.”

“I didn’t really get a choice. It showed up on my bed when I was still a kid. I never really knew anything else, for a long time.”

“Do you miss it?”

That draws a sigh out of him. The blindfold, and all it entails, is a complicated subject for Tyreek. The pressure of the position, of having to hold up ideals and make judgements and be the symbol of an entire city, it was too much for him. He didn’t know what it felt like to feel like his body was his own until he finally gave it up. For Justice, it was freedom, for him, it was a trap.

“Not really. I was pretty glad to hand it over to Justice, and she was far better at it than I ever was, to be honest. Just because it wasn’t for me in the end, doesn’t mean it won’t be great for you, though, if you chose to do it.”

“I think I want to,” He says, a little bashfully. “The title though, that’s what has me worried. I spent long enough trying to pick out my name as it is, I don’t want to lose it.”

“Well, I don’t necessarily know how well you’ll be able to get away with it when we’re in the city, but at least while we’re out of the city calling you by your name shouldn’t be an issue. The power of it doesn’t reach that far. And with how much we’re on the road these days…”

“...That might just work. Huh.”

“Think on it, Edric. You don’t have to decide now. And it takes a little bit of getting used to, so waiting till after the game at least is a good call.”

“Yeah, that makes sense. Thank you, Tyreek.” Edric stands, heading towards the door. “I’ll let you know what I decide.”

Once the door closes, Tyreek lets out a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding and flops back down onto the bed. He lies there for a couple minutes until the alarm on his phone goes off, reminding him that they had moved practice up an hour, and he now has 5 minutes to leave the hotel. 

He unleashes a scream into the sheets. All he can think is: what a fucking mess.

\------

They win the game. That’s the most frustrating part of the whole thing, honestly, that they win the damn game. By all rights, they  _ should _ lose, with a brand new player and a gaping whole in the middle of the team that no one knows how to deal with, and part of Tyreek feels so guilty that it’s mixing in with the pit of dread still in his stomach. 

Edric is inside on his bed, flicking through the channels on the hotel TV, but Tyreek is outside on the balcony of his hotel room, looking out at the sun just starting to set. He knows he’s seconds away from all-consuming heaving sobs if he lets himself because Nora Perez got incinerated this afternoon, and he is now down two very good friends in a matter of two days. The grief is so heavy and thick, threatening to coat everything in sight, and there’s nothing he wants more in this moment than to just let it, but he’s made a promise. To his team, to himself, and in this particular moment, to Edric. So he takes a few deep breaths, wipes away a few stray tears that have managed to escape, and heads back inside.

“You sure about this?”

Edric jumps a little at the sound of his voice, but steels himself and nods. 

“Yeah, I really am.”

“Okay. Go get comfy, I just need to get everything ready.”

His memory of putting on the blindfold is the first one he has; him as a four year old crying at the overstimulation, everything being too loud and too bright in an instant, so he wants to do his best to mitigate that for Edric, just like he had for Justice. There’s no dimmer in the room, so Tyreek just turns on the lamp in the corner and turns off the overheads, letting the soft light cast shadows across the room. Edric is already lying down so he sits down next to him awkwardly, not quite sure what to do now.

“You ready for this?”

“Yeah, I think so. Just a little nervous.”

“You’ll be fine. It’s just a little… overwhelming at first.”

Edric readjusts himself, about to put on the blindfold, but turns to look at him right before he does. “Hey Tyreek?”

“Yeah?”

“Do you mind holding my hand for this?”

“Not at all.”

Once the blindfold is on, Edric lies back down and extends his hand. Tyreek takes it gently, sitting back against the headboard. He can tell when the blindfold has started attuning itself, because Edric gives a sharp gasp, and is suddenly holding his hand in a vice-like grip.

He remembers what it was like still to this day; adjusting to seeing the world through every perspective but your own. How loud it would get, hearing and seeing things through the eyes and ears of all the people and cameras around him, the way even the alarms and sirens in the firehouse, sounds that had been background music all his life, would make him cry in those first few days. He doesn’t miss it, not at all, because having a brain that is his alone is something he’ll fight to the death for now. How it’ll be for Edric though, only time will tell.

Just as Tyreek is starting to nod off, Edric sits up abruptly and turns to look at him. All he can seem to say is:

“Holy shit.”

(That night, Tyreek dreams of dark, deep, murky water. He dreams of drowning, the waves crashing against him and dragging him further and further under. He dreams of seeing the bubbles leave his lips as the pressure pushes up against his ribs. He dreams of stone and bitter, crushing cold, of light and then darkness. Only darkness. 

When he wakes up, he’s forgotten how to breathe.)

\------

_ (justice swims. if she could feel, the water would seem bone-numbingly cold. the kind of cold that caves in your chest, forces everything out of your lungs in one quick shudder, but she has no air left to give. the darkness is all-consuming, forever present, unyielding and wild, an eternity of blankness, but sometimes, just sometimes, when she closes her eyes she can see glimpses of light, soft as a candle. the phantom sounds of an alarm echo in her ears, spinning themselves out of the roar of the waves. for a second, it feels like home.) _

\------

They’re back in Los Angeles after a winning streak in San Francisco. In fact, they haven’t lost a game since Justice’s incineration, which feels… uncomfortable, though he’s not sure if that’s the right word for it. Mostly though, he’s just exhausted, the kind of exhausted that you feel in your bones and your chest and every step you take. All of them are just counting the days till they’re back home, when he’ll be able to sleep in his own bed and city, but that’s over a week and a half away and they’ve been gone for a whole one already. For certainly not the first or the last time, he’s bemoaning that this is not what he signed up for (not that any of them signed up for this, not truly). 

He’s been crouching against the wall of the hotel they’re staying at right now for the past 15 minutes, on the phone with Landry to try and sort out some way to be there for Nora’s memorial, which is looking like an increasingly impossible task, given that they’re both going to be at away games. (If he was back in Chicago, he may have been able to swing it, but he’s going to be stuck here. As it is, they’re going to have to wait another 2 weeks to be able to do Justice’s. Every time he thinks about it, tears start creeping up his throat again.)

The time difference between Hades and Los Angeles is not kind, and Landry has a game to play but Tyreek doesn’t have it in him to go inside just yet. Instead he just sits, resting the back of his head against the scorching hot brick, and tries to simmer his frustration and upset into something more manageable. He’s so sick of California at this point, of the heat and sun here that seems to be mocking him, at the fog and chill by the bay that had sunk into his bones and followed him like a ghost. All he wants in the world right now is to be home, in his bed at the firehouse, in the city that made him, but it’s feeling more and more like an unattainable goal.

He loses track of time for a little bit, watching the cars rush past on the freeway they’re next to, feeling disjointed and outside his skin. He gets like this sometimes, when he’s just too sad or tired, and even though he wants to move he can’t seem to get himself to. The pervasiveness of pure wrongness that filled him hasn’t abated since Justice’s incineration, and neither have his dreams. They’re always the same: dark, blue, inky water, air leaving his lungs, the shock of the cold. The dread sits; in his joints and the balls of his hands and the pit of his stomach.

When he looks back up, he can see Edric at the other end of the parking lot, leaning against the brick with a cigarette in one hand and his phone in another. He’s talking just loud enough for his voice to carry across the lot, but not enough to know what he’s saying. He’s animated, though, his arms gesturing wildly in a way that Tyreek has come to know means he’s either talking to one of his sisters or Declan. He’s taken to the blindfold in a way he hadn’t expected, giving him a boost of self-assuredness that suits him.

Tyreek finds himself staring for longer than he’d rather admit, and when Edric finally notices him, he looks away quickly, flushed. He can hear him finish up his phone call, and then the steps of his boots echoing across the cement towards him until they stop about five feet away. He finds it somewhere deep within him to look up at him, but he finds that all he can focus on is the light of the cigarette.

“How ya doing, Tyreek?” Edric has a sly grin on his face, but it slips a little bit when he notices what Tyreek is looking at. “Oh, sorry, I know you’re not a fan of this.”

“Oh! No, it’s fine.” It really is. It’s not the cigarette itself, it’s the damn light on the end of it, a little too close to the light of the ump for him to be comfortable. Part of him feels some relief when the light vanishes as Edric snuffs it out, however, and it’s an implication of something he is absolutely not prepared to deal with right now.

“Seriously though, what are you doing out here? You’re not looking too great.”

“Man, it feels like everytime you open your mouth lately is just to insult me.”

“Concern isn’t an insult, Tyreek. If I wanted to insult you, I’d say your mug is looking even uglier than usual. Which is not-” Edric pauses at the glare on Tyreek’s face. “Look. I’m just worried, is all.”

“You shouldn’t be.”

“But I am. So what’s going on?”

“I was just on the phone with Landry trying to figure stuff out about Nora.”

“I take it didn’t go so well?”

“There’s just no way either one of us is going to make it. This whole thing is a clusterfuck, to be honest.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. It’s not your fault.”

“No, you’re right. Still…”

This is not something he wants to get into right now. There’s so many people at fault here, but it sure as hell isn’t either of them, or any of the other players in the league, for that matter. Not for the first time, he wishes he could be back on Landry’s worn out couch in Tartarus, drinking shitty coffee and laughing over something that doesn’t matter. Even being surrounded at all turns by fire would be preferable to this. He lets himself live there for a minute until a gentle cough from Edric reminds him that he’s still there.

“Sorry about that. Have you checked in yet?”

“No, not yet. You?”

Edric shakes his head. “Wanna head in?” 

He reaches out his arm to help Tyreek up. He starts to get up, reaches for it and-

_ (blue blue all he can see is water and dark the rush of the waves in his ears drowns out anything else it’s loud so loud he tries to move but he can't nothing happens no movement no sound no air no lungs turns his head and nora’s there asleep he knows he should be-) _

“-yreek? You okay?” Edric is looking even more concerned than he already was and somehow Tyreek’s sure that his eyebrow is quirked up underneath the blindfold.

“Yeah, I’m fine. Just a bit of a headrush, that’s all.”

He can tell Edric doesn’t believe him, but he’s kind enough not to question it.

_ (for the first time since she got here, justice can see. surrounded by bright, brilliant, buoyant light, she can feel the sun on her face and and her feet on the ground and there’s a face she doesn’t recognize but knows that she knows and she wants to laugh, loud joyous heart filled laughs and-  _

_ it’s all water again. she feels nothing.) _

\------

The next incineration happens a day after they leave New York. Tyreek finds himself shamefully grateful that they weren’t there, because if he lost another person on his watch, he doesn’t know what he would do.

\------

There are certain universal truths about what happens to a Chicago Firefighter when they die, and so it’s a shock when they finally get back to the city and Justice isn’t anywhere. Not in the Dispatch, not on the mural or any of the windows of the Firehouse. It’s like she didn’t leave a trace and so it’s a quick consensus all the firefighters come to to make the base of the statue she came from a place to remember her. No firefighter should be elevated above another but it’s an unspoken agreement that Justice still deserves a place to be remembered.

Caleb makes a beautiful lace blanket to lay there, Isaac builds a little shelter around it to keep things dry. Edric has a rock that he places there (from outside the Taco’s stadium, he tells Tyreek later), Atlas brings some flowers from her garden, and Tyreek has one of her books he gave her when she first came. By the end of it there’s something from everyone there, the pedestal covered in trinkets and drawings and everything in between, and when Tyreek sees it all together, he can’t stop crying.

It rains in Chicago the day they do the funeral. Tyreek finds himself grateful that at least it’s not sun.

\------

_ (she thinks maybe her eyes have started to adjust to the light. or seeing in general. the water’s calmer now, at least, the rocking dying down to something gentle but she’s still moving and god, she wishes she wasn’t. the blobs around her have amalgamated into shapes and directly facing her is the motionless form of nora perez, cocooned in water. she’s curled up, eyes closed like she’s sleeping, and if justice squints, she can see jaylen behind her. there’s the distinct suspicion that this is what she’s supposed to be like right now, and a chill runs up her spine. justice spoon may not be alone, but this is so much worse.) _

\-------

Tyreek gets coffee with Hurley Pacheco a little less than two weeks before they’re incinerated. There’s a tenseness to it, though they both try and keep it light even with the elephant of everything looming overhead. He even walks them back to their shop afterwards and gets a bouquet for Justice to bring with him on the train back to Chicago. It’s the last time they speak.

When he hears, he gives himself five minutes to put himself together before he goes and plays a game. They win 12 - 3. He doesn’t cry.

\------

Somehow, despite everything, they still find themselves in the semi-finals that year. They don’t make it past it and he’s glad, because playing against the Flowers is hard enough.

As soon as the season ends, Tyreek announces that he’s taking a month of the paid overtime he’s accumulated over the years. He knows it’s the cowardly thing to do but he does it anyway, leaving Butt and Rosa in charge because everywhere he looks is like seeing a ghost. It’s more than just Justice that’s making him feel this way, he’s beginning to realize; that was just the trigger for every thing or person that he’s left behind, the failure that looms larger and larger over his head.

The thing is, he was the only one that was truly there for the entirety of the great fire. Rosa and Butt and the others came towards the end, and it was horrific, but they didn’t have to watch the only family they had at that point be burned alive, one by one. And this- it’s brought back the ghosts in a way that is suffocating, overwhelming at times. If he were a better person, he would have stayed, helped his crew work through their first month of shifts without Justice, would have trained Paula up to standard, but he isn’t and he doesn’t and so the pit of guilt in his stomach only grows.

\------

The first place Tyreek goes is Baltimore, and after a brunch with Adalberto where Nora’s presence is sorely missed, Landry and him find themselves in Kennedy Loser’s living room, neither of them really knowing what to say. 

He’d brought a seashell from the shore of Lake Michigan, and it’s already sitting on the mantle next to Nora’s ashes, but in his hand he’s holding the first thing he has of her, a fossil stone she gave him on the day they met. It’s one of a handful of things he keeps on his bedside table, to remind him of the people that keep him grounded. He originally brought it for her but now-

“I don’t think I can do it,” He chokes out, tears threatening to spill over.

Landry hands cup his face gently, bringing it up to look at his.

“Hey! Hey, that’s okay. You don’t have to do it now, or ever. It’s okay. I’m sure she’d much rather you have comfort from it than have you be upset like this. You can do it if or when you’re ready.”

So that’s that. He cries a little more, and then they have tea with Ken, who was kind enough to give them space before that.

Landry takes him out for dinner later, at one of their favourite diners in the city, and it’s quiet and somber but they’ve spent enough time just existing in each other’s orbits that it’s not awkward, just comfortable. It’s overcast in Baltimore that evening, heavy clouds and the smell of rain in the air, and they rush briskly out of the restaurant to try and avoid the storm that seems seconds away only to be confronted with paparazzi right outside the door.

It’s not the first time this has happened by a longshot, and there are certainly horror stories that predate blaseball. Landry’s always been popular, and usually Tyreek is sympathetic if mildly annoyed, but his temper is running increasingly short these days, and neither of them are in the mood. So when this photographer gets up in his face and snaps a picture just as the skies start pouring, his immediate instinct isn’t to just say something cutting and move on like he usually would, but instead to unleash his wings so quickly they knock the man over and then fly a little ways down the street so he can have his breakdown in relative peace.

And if he doesn’t feel an inch of guilt about it? Well, that’s his prerogative.

Tyreek can vaguely hear Landry yelling at the man a couple hundred metres away but his heart is getting too loud in his head to really make it out.

_ (-the pitch is like a crack of lightning, so bright and all you can do is run and run and run-) _

His breath is hitching in his chest, claustrophobic and stuck and he can’t get it out.

_ (-she’s disintegrating before your eyes, turning to ash in the palms of your hands-) _

It comes out in one long, shuddering breath, and now he’s gulping down air like a man drowning.

_ (-all that’s left of her is the blisters on your palms, you didn't get there in time-) _

It’s spinning out of control.

_ (-the city’s raining fire, it’s all burning, they’re all burning in front of you-) _

He’s started hyperventilating, eyes squeezed tight as possible.

_ (-It’s fire it’s all fire just fire fire fire fire fire-) _

“Tyreek? Can I touch you, babe?” 

That’s enough to snap him out, at least a little bit, and he gives a quick nod. Landry’s touch is as grounding as it always has been, and his breath is already beginning to slow slightly.

“Do you think you can open your eyes for me, babe?”

Tyreek cracks one eye open, still disoriented and overwhelmed, to find that he’s somehow made it to the ground in all of that. Landry is in one of his more human forms today, crouched down next to him, and the hands in his are cracked and bleeding. He doesn’t ask now, though, still trying to regain control of his breathing as Landry talks him through the steps.

It isn’t until they’re lying together on their hotel bed a few hours later (they had grown out of using Adalberto's pull-out couch about 5 years back), with his head on Landry’s chest that it comes up.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

He shakes his head. “Not really. Do you?”

“Not particularly.”

“That probably means we should, right?’

“Yeah.”

They shift so they’re lying face to face, heads tilted together, and he can feel Landry rubbing his thumb in circles against his hand where they’re intertwined, an action that’s always comforted him. Landry starts:

“I broke his camera.”

“You didn’t!”

“I did. Not my proudest moment, but he kept taking pictures after you left and I wasn’t about to let that footage get anywhere.”

“My shining knight.”

“Hey,” Landry nudges him. “Okay, your turn.”

“I’m fine.”

“Come on, don’t be like that. What happened? Was it just another one of your…”

Tyreek knows what he’s referencing, the flood of memories he used to have in the days after the great fire, the way his chest would cave in and Landry would have to hold him through heaving sobs.

“No, actually. Well, kinda, but it was the flash from the camera, I think. It reminded me of…”

“...Justice.”

“Yeah.”

Landry’s thumb finds the scars on his palm from the blisters he got from holding her that day, running over them gently.

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s not like it’s your fault.”

“No, it’s not. But it happened to you, and I’m sorry about that.”

“Can we go to bed?”

“Sure, hun.”

Tyreek feels as safe as he always does in Landry’s arms, but it still takes him hours to fall asleep.

\------

_ (the only way she can tell time at all is by the little amount of moonlight that filters through the water, and that’s only when she’s lucky. mostly, it’s just darkness, inky black and stagnant, and she’s relying on her ears to try and keep track of any changes, hard as it is over the roar of the water. there’s more shifting, more bristling in the reefs around them, and soon, justice thinks, soon she might not be so alone.) _

\------

Tyreek spends a week in Hades, mostly just sleeping in Landry’s apartment. It’s not as if there’s any tourist spots or places for him to visit; that was all done a good decade or so ago. So he sleeps and reads and cries a little while Landry takes care of his business around the city, and at night they get food from their favourite restaurants, and it’s a well needed break, as guilty as he feels about it. He leaves at the end of the week with a kiss to Landry’s cheek and a note on his side of the bed, a tradition that goes back to the first time they met, and catches a flight to the Utah desert.

This is Tyreek’s first time visiting Rhys, Velasquez, and Sandoval since Moab turned into the Hellmouth. The one series they had against the Sunbeams last season was in Chicago, so he hasn’t had the pleasure. It’s… different than he expects, with the abundance of teeth and smell of burning plastic in the air, but the trio’s house remains as unchanged as ever, warm and homey.

It’s Vela who greets him at the door, ushering him into the kitchen where there’s already a pitcher of iced tea on the island and a pair of glasses sitting next to it. They pour some into both and pass one over to Tyreek before he even has a chance to sit down, and turns back to finish working on what looks to be a salad on the counter. 

The room is pretty much how he remembers. With the late afternoon sun streaming in, hitting the pans, catching on Vela’s earrings and stirring up the dust, he feels at home. There’s a handful of places like that for him, places he would escape to when the pressure of Chicago felt like it would break him; Bertie’s spare room, Hurley’s flower shop, Landry’s apartment, and here.

Vela’s voice drags him out of his head, “Rhys and Sandy will be back soon. They’re just dealing with some stuff.”

Tyreek takes a sip of the tea, a handmade mix of jasmine and evening primrose that he has been begging them to give him the recipe for for years. “Oh?”

“Sandy got called to take care of some hellmouth business and Rhys went with them so they wouldn’t be alone. I stayed back because someone had to be here to let you in. Also finish supper.” They finish chopping up the last of the vegetables and put them in the bowl, setting it aside and turning back around. “What are you doing here, Tyreek? Not that we don’t appreciate your company, but your letter didn’t say.” 

“Oh, you know…”

“Running away from your problems again?”

“I mean, I wouldn’t go that far.”

“That’s usually why you come here, so…”

“Am I really that obvious?”

“Yes!” Vela laughs, coming over to sit across from him. “Now, come on, tell Auntie Vela what’s wrong.”

That gets him chuckling too. “Fuck off.”

“Now, that’s not very nice. Seriously though, you look tired.”

“I  _ am _ tired.”

“I can tell. It’s more than that, though. There’s something…” Vela peers into his eyes in a way that’s like seeing straight through his soul and it never fails to freak him out a little. They must see something they don’t like, because they recoil and the light mood in the air is sharply gone. He’s never seen them quite like this, and it’s concerning, to say the least.

“...What?”

Vela is looking more freaked out than he thinks he’s ever seen her, eyes wide with trepidation. “I- you have something coming out of the back of your head, Tyreek!”

That gives him pause. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, you have a string of dark stuff I can’t figure out coming out the back of your head to the ground. I don’t know how I didn’t notice this before…”

“That doesn’t sound good.”

“Of course it’s not good, Tyreek!” They’ve gotten up and are looking at it closer now. “This wasn’t here the last time you visited, that’s for sure. I don’t know, Tyreek. I’ve never seen anything like this before. It’s…”

They trail off as they both hear the door open, Vela’s husbands clearly returning. They turn to him, clearly wanting to say more but ultimately decides not to.

“Let’s talk about this later, yeah?”

He nods his agreement, putting on a smile to look at Rhys and Sandoval. They both look tired, but Sandy especially looks more worn out than the last time he saw them.

Sandoval grins. “Tyreek! Good to see you!” 

Rhys turns and smacks him on the arm. “You knew he was coming.”

“Yes, well, maybe I’m just excited to see an old friend.” They’ve poured themself some of the ice tea and are leaning against the counter. “No Landry this time?” 

Tyreek rolls his eyes. Landry and Sandoval have had a (mostly playful, though sometimes he doubts how much) rivalry that goes back to a silly bet in their early 20’s that no one remembers anymore, but the passive-aggressiveness lives on.

“No, unfortunately he had stuff to take care of in Hades.” Not a lie, but not strictly the truth either. He’s not going to say that, though.

“Oh, what a shame.”

Now it’s Vela’s turn to smack Sandoval gently on the arm. 

“Okay! That’s enough. Come on, it’s time to eat anyways,” They exclaim as they start ushering everyone towards the dining table.

Him and Vela don’t continue their conversation later. They all get a little too wine drunk over supper and everyone’s in bed by 10. Tyreek finds himself feeling grateful, admitally not willing to deal with whatever the fuck they were talking about, because that feels like a full step above his paygrade. It does make him think, though, and it’s something he files away in the back of his mind.

That night, for the first night in many months, he doesn’t dream of ocean, or water, or drowning. Instead, he doesn’t dream at all.

\------

_ (there’s more movement these days. there’s been no new people for a couple weeks, but the old ones, the ones like her, are beginning to stir. first it’s massey, then jenna, and nora too. jaylen doesn’t move, though. jaylen never moves. “what are we going to do,” nora asks, yelling over the waves of each of their bubbles. all justice can say is: “i don’t know.”) _

\-------

He lands back in Chicago with a large bag of tea in his luggage, and a plant from the Hellmouth for Atlas in his hand. Getting back into the flow of firefighting is hard; he feels out of place now, in a way that is both disconcerting and exhausting. There seems to have been an unconscious shift from Tyreek to Josh and Rivers as leaders, which is probably honestly for the best. Of course, the Firefighters, both as a blaseball team and as first responders, have traditionally been collectively led, but there have always been leaders that have stepped to the front. He was one, up until now, because he was the only one with the knowledge and experience to really be able to manage it, especially in those first few months after the great fire. Now, he feels like more of a hindrance than anything else; old and worn and peeling at the edges.

Even with all their firefighting shifts, they still have practice on top of that, and as brutal as the blaseball season is (and it  _ is _ brutal, no question about it), for the firefighters, the offseason is even busier. He’s still managing all the paperwork on that side, because he feels like he has to contribute somehow, and he can recognize he’s not particularly in the position to be the leader he once was. 

It’s the day before the election when he finds himself in Atlas’s garden. Rhys had sent him another sapling after he had passed on that Atlas loved the one he had brought back for her, and he has that in his hands as he looks up at the ivy that has melded itself around the glass of the makeshift greenhouse and into the brick of the firehouse. It’s impressive, the rows of planters and pots that she has managed to grow, and he finds himself wondering why he’s never spent more time here. 

“Here to steal some of my babies?”

He spins around to see Atlas leaning against the entrance, grinning. It’s a sharp contrast from how he remembers her when she first arrived; timed and scared, but determined. The determination is still there but she’s grown into herself, strong and confident and fully aware of her worth. He’s glad.

“No, I just came to drop this off for you,” He says, holding up the plant. “You’ve done a really good job in here.”

She grabs the pot right of his hands and coos at it. “Oh, she’s gorgeous! And thanks, I’m pretty proud of it, if I do say so myself.” 

“You should be.”

They reach an amiable silence as Atlas replants the bioluminescent nightshade he gave her. She’s about hands deep in the dirt when he asks:

“So, how are you feeling?”

“I knew you had an ulterior motive!”

“No! It’s just that the elections make me nervous, you know? Figured I might not be the only one.”

There’s a couple of blessings going around this year that have him worried, namely two that have to do with stealing players from other teams. The two of them have talked about this, because for Atlas, it’s a potential way to get back to her sister, if she’s lucky enough. It’s a blessing and a curse, because he knows how much she misses her, but he can’t help but think it would be a loss to the city.

“Oh, you know, I’m a bit ambivalent. It’s not like we have much choice, one way or the other.”

That’s certainly true. The fury he feels at the sheer lack of control any of them have over this situation could take him over if he lets it, and it’s a battle he feels closer to losing every day.

“Can’t say I disagree with that. Listen, I know I haven’t been the best leader around, or teammate and I’m…”

She gives him a wry grin. “You don’t have to absolve yourself to me, Tyreek. We all know losing Justice was even harder on you than it was for than the rest of us, in a way. Just don’t lose yourself in it, okay? Because that’s no good for you or anyone else.”

She stands up from where she was leaning over the table, putting the plant with the other ones and brushing the dirt off her hands before clapping Tyreek on the back and leaving. She’s wise beyond her years, he thinks, as the glass door clinks shut behind her.

\------

_ (she’s started to feel again. part of her wonders if it’s psychological, like the people waking up around her are making a difference, somehow. what she does know, is that she can feel the cold now, the mind-numbing, teeth-shattering cold. she can feel the way it pierces straight to her core, the way it blankets everything and everyone. she hasn’t seen the moon in many days, it seems like, and justice spoon wonders what exactly is going on.) _

\-------

They’re 2 days into the season when Rhys dies. It’s Atlas who tells him right after the game, who wasn’t pitching and had watched it live on her phone. Tyreek had just talked to them the night before, and they were talking about how things seemed like they might be better this time around and sounded so  _ hopeful _ , and it’s enough to make him almost break down right then and there.

He’s phoning Vela and Sandy before he even reaches the locker room, and then later he phones Landry and tries to not watch the video of it on repeat. He already knows it’s a waste of time to try and get to the funeral, not with it being at the hellmouth and him being here. It’s the same story of what happened with Nora, and what happened with Hurley, and  _ fuck _ if he doesn’t want to just cry and never move again.

It becomes increasingly clear that things are, in fact, going to be much, much worse this season on day 5 when three different players are incinerated in three different games. It becomes even more obvious when Miguel Javier is incinerated two steps away from him in San Francisco. It’s Justice all over again- the running, the desperation, the futileness, the failure. Because once again, he’s failed to do the one thing he’s been trained to do since birth: save people. That video he doesn’t try to stop himself from watching, instead he plays it again and again until it’s imprinted in his brain, trying to decipher and analyze every second to figure out exactly where he went wrong. It doesn’t work.

\------ 

Tyreek doesn’t know how to feel about peanut weather. He’s always itchy on those days, crawling out of his skin, and the smell makes him want to gag, but still, it’s some kind of reprieve from the ever looming threat of incineration that was last season when it was eclipse day after day. With this, at least no one is going to die, though he’s been hearing about allergic reactions, which is concerning in and of itself.

It’s day 22 and he’s waiting his turn to bat when Edric hits a single, and just as he gets to first, he starts keeling over, and Tyreek has no clue what just happened. Edric is choking, his face starting to turn blue, and Tyreek thinks he hears Baby say something about a peanut but he’s too busy trying to get on the field to really process it.

He barely gets one foot onto the field before the ump is shoving him back. Their voice echoes, loud and distorted:

**_“PLAY MUST RESUME.”_ **

Tyreek scoffs in disbelief, gesturing wildly. “He needs medical attention!”

**_“PLAY MUST RESUME.”_ **

“Tyreek, it’s okay.”

He whips his head around to see Edric already standing back, looking decidedly worse for wear, but alive nonetheless. They lock eyes and Tyreek knows the point he’s trying to get across: don’t ruffle any feathers. And Tyreek gets it, he does, because the last time he did, it ended up with Justice in ashes on the field in Los Angeles. So he nods his assent and steps back, as much as it pains him.

It happens again two innings later, this time to Josh, who looks even worse off than Edric did, and then to Paula, who looks even worse still. Edric has to physically restrain him both times, grabbing his arm and digging his nails in to stop him, warning on his breath.

“Now is not the time, Tyreek.” 

He’s right. Tyreek knows he’s right, but it goes against everything he knows to just stand there and watch it happen. Especially when it becomes clearly that those peanuts  _ did _ something, that they’re changed by what happened (he won’t say worse, even though it might be the objective truth, because no one’s worth is determined by how good they are by a god damn splort), the guilt just adds on to the pile that’s been sitting there for a year and some odd days, and he feels so full of it that he’s convinced this sense of failure must be in every cell of his body, in the very makeup of his bones and his blood and everything he is.

\------

_ (they’ve started to break through a bit. everyone who’s awake has been pushing against the edges of their bubbles, against the wall of waves that keep them there. there’s a sick sense of camaraderie abound, like they all know they’re doing something they’re not supposed to, but they’re all willing to go down with this ship together. it takes three days of trying and the feeling of her hand being sawed off at the wrist, but she manages to do it. so does nora and they both strain and reach until they’re grasping each other’s hands desperately, and justice feels contact with someone for the first time in a year.) _

\------

Three days later, Vela gets incinerated.

He’s in Boston when he hears, which is painful in it’s own way. Because the world has a great sense of irony, he’s in (what used to be) Hurley’s flower shop when it happens; Mattheo Carpenter is in the middle of showing him how they’ve taken over the place when the news starts blaring out of the old speaker. 

He finds himself on the linoleum floor of the shop without even realizing he sat down, too stunned to cry or speak or do anything at all, really. He’s taking in heavy, heaving gasps as Mattheo wordlessly hands him a water bottle from behind the counter and proceeds to shoo out the last remaining customer, locking the door with a click. 

Neither of them say anything, instead there’s just an awkwardness in the air as Matheo crouches by him as he tries to regain his breath, concern written on his face. Despite both of them being friends with Hurley for years and liking each other decently, they certainly aren’t close enough for this current situation. That is to say: breaking down on the floor of his shop that used to belong to their now-dead mutual friend after hearing that  _ another  _ one of his friends had just died is perhaps a little bit more intimate than either of them would like.

Eventually he feels okay enough to move again, mumbling apologies around a mouthful of shame that Matheo quickly dismisses, and rings him up for a bouquet of alstroemerias and hyacinths and a dark purple orchid to go along with it. He sends them off to Sandoval with express shipping and a note to go with it because he’s a bad friend and knows he won’t phone for at least a couple more days. It’s shitty and he feels like an absolute coward because Sandoval has now lost both of his partners in the space of less than a month, but Tyreek is shutting down. He gets back to his hotel room and doesn’t talk to a soul, not even to answer the phone as it flashes Landry’s name over and over.

\------

He phones Sandoval a couple days later and apologizes, gives his condolences and Sandy doesn’t say anything about it because he is a much better person than Tyreek, and is just sorry he won’t be able to make the funeral.

Tyreek and Landry argue, and Tyreek cries. He knows they’ll get over it, because they always do, but it hurts nonetheless. There’s so much building up inside him, guilt and fear and that pure sense of wrongness that’s been steeping in his bones since the day Justice died. Some days he feels like a pressure cooker fit to burst, stretched and pushed as far as he can go. Other days it’s like he’s a live wire; raw and exposed and fraying at the edges. It’s a bad combination with Landry’s righteous fury most days, now that they both have half the patience and capacity that they used to.

Still, they love each other, deeply and intensely, and with the conviction of a thousand stars, so they make it work. They make it work, and they keep moving, and the rest of the season happens in a blur.

A couple things he remembers, like the peanut that almost wipes Declan out and some of the incinerations stand out, the ones he knew through mutual friends or in passing like Sebastian Sunshine from the Fridays or Matteo Prestige from the Shoe Thieves, but the rest start to blend together, which upsets him deeply. By the end of the onseason there are 26 players dead that year, a number far too high considering that by his estimations it should be zero.

It’s infuriating and upsetting and he’s reached a point of not knowing what to do. All he can do is hope for things to get better while keeping his feet to the ground, and try not to fall into a million pieces while doing it.

\------

_ (it’s taking the new arrivals quicker to wake up. she’s not really sure why, not sure if it’s the impossible warmth that grows the more people they have, or if whatever is keeping them here is getting stretched thin with each new face that shows up. they’re all a blur for the most part, people she never got to meet, or heard of in passing, but there are some she recognizes, mostly friends of tyreek. she still holds hands with nora most days as people begin to stir, but it doesn't escape justice’s notice that Jaylen never moves.) _

\------

He’s in Hades when it happens. 

When it became increasingly clear that the Tigers were going to make it to the postseason and the Firefighters were not, Landry had asked if he would come with him for it, and seeing the enthusiasm on his face, he couldn’t help but say yes. He doesn’t blame him for his excitement; even in all this horror, the Tigers had won more games so far than any other team this season, and they seemed on track to win, luck permitting. Besides, after a full season apart, to sleep next to Landry, to bask in his warmth, feels like he’s remembering the part of himself he forgot he was missing.

It feels like a reset in a way, following him on the road like this. It’s almost like they’re back in their 20’s, the two of them against the world with nothing but a hope and a prayer and a mountain of love between them. And he’s going to be a better teammate this summer, he’s promised, but this feels like a good opportunity to get his head back together after the complete mess that was this past season. So he’s glad he says yes, until he’s not.

He’s sitting about two rows back from the field with Paula when it happens. They had all gone out for drinks the night before, the two of them and Landry and Moody and Yasmin, so he’s only really paying half-attention to the game, the two of them chattering away, but Paula gets called down to help with something at the top of the 5th inning and he’s left to his own devices, sitting there, restless.

He can feel it in the air seconds before it goes down, static crackling, the taste of smoke in the air. He doesn’t look away when nearly everyone else does, because Firefighters never look away; instead he watches as the light streaks across the field, watches as it strikes Landry right in the square of his back from where he’s shielding Paula with all his might. He watches as Landry stands up, strong and tall, alight like the torch he has always been, and looks him straight in the eyes, a thousand words and a lifetime of love and anger and passion going unsaid in a single glance. He watches as the one person who has truly ever known him, inside and out, burns to the ground, leaving nothing but a pile of ash in the grass. He watches as Paula stands up, stunned and unsteady, picking up Landry’s glove before turning back to look at Tyreek for a brief second, and then to the team, nodding.

The stadium is pitch silent when the words leave her mouth: “Violence begets violence!” 

That’s enough to shock everyone out of silence and the crowd begins chanting, the words slowly morphing into “Rest in violence” and the cries keep building until it’s shaking the whole stadium, and without realizing what he’s doing, Tyreek runs. He runs all the way out of the stadium, past the laundry and Sisyphus Park and Drachma Coffee until he reaches the steps of Landry’s apartment building. Keeled over, out of breath with tears streaming down his face, Tyreek can feel his world shattering into a thousand tiny pieces.

On the 110th day of season 3, Landry Violence dies, and something in Tyreek breaks.

_ (they can’t sleep here but she still tries sometimes, if not just to block out the chatter and waves. this time, she opens her eyes to see the brightest light she’s seen in almost two years, illuminating for the first time just how cavernous and deep the trench that they’re in is. the light dims to reveal the slacken face of landry violence a metre away from her, and justice knows there’s a big storm coming.) _

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> gotta say thanks to the ffs lore campground for being major cheerleaders as always! there will be two more chapters of this, covering up until season 10!
> 
> story title is from earthrise by KAYE, and chapter title is from dust and ashes by dave malloy.


End file.
